Lighten up...seriously!
By Gil Kiekenapp

Laugh so hard - tears flow out! Do you recall if ever there was a time when your doctor got you to that condition by something said or done? Those attending know it happened at our Metro Region Expo/Convention on Saturday, May 5. Only a doctor wearing a bulbous bright red nose and dressed in a clown suit could so poignantly posit his premise, “Why Normal Isn’t Healthy”! We all got that message even while figuratively falling out of our chairs and rolling in the aisles. The timely topic rang relevant not only to our own individual vitally aging lives, but also to our relationship to reorganization and restructuring of The Minnesota Senior Federation, which has been occupying our time and energy of late, and will for some time to come. So, let’s lighten up, not take ourselves so seriously, but take our future very seriously.

We were reminded by our keynoter, Dr. Bowen White, MD, that, as kids, teens and 20-somethings, we often physically abused our bodies through extreme sports and sausage and pepperoni pizzas, double cheeseburgers, double-thick malts and fries. (Oh, and super-size that!)

Then we hit age 35 or so and the back goes out for the umpteenth time, cholesterol is through the roof and the doc says, “Cut the fat!” Well, surprise! Surprise! Our Senior Federation is 35 and we have seen evidences of MnSF organizational health crises. Oh, my aching budget! And often it feels like we’re carrying too much weight in the wrong places. So, let’s lighten up, not take ourselves so seriously, but take our future very seriously.

Then we progressed to our annual convention business meeting and what became, for me, the most gratifying event of the day. Following Reid Zimmerman’s superb presentation on our re-formation plans and a challenging Q & A in which many participated, we voted on resolutions of support for reorganization which passed unanimously! We take our future very seriously.

We do not yet know for sure exactly what will be required of what is now our Metro Region here in the Metropolitan seven-county mosquito control district. When we apprehend what our new world order task will be, we will want to organize strategically to accomplish that mission. Membership recruitment and relationships may well turn out to be our main focus and it may be that existing as one big single region won’t work well anymore.

I have appointed a task force of particularly well-qualified individuals to do this revisioning work. Dennis Shonka, Marty Gates, Bob Bonine and Mary Ann Beneke have indicated they can lighten up, not take themselves too seriously, but take our future very seriously.